[URBAN NOTE] "Why Victoria is the perfect place to begin the royal tour"

[rfmcdonald]

MacLean's shares a Canadian Press article describing why the British Columbian capital of Victoria is a perfect place for a tour of British royalty in Canada to start.

When Prince William, his wife Kate and their children land in Victoria on Saturday aboard a Royal Canadian Air Force helicopter, the future king and queen will survey the city that has more connections to the monarchy than any other place in Canada.

Parts of the city named in 1844 after Prince William’s great, great, great, great-grandmother Queen Victoria still resemble a slice of England, complete with Tudor-style mansions and double-decker buses painted with the Union Jack.

In Victoria’s inner harbour, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will see two of the city’s most prominent landmarks — the Fairmont Empress Hotel, named after Queen Victoria’s additional title Empress of India, and the provincial parliament buildings, both of which were built by British architect Francis Rattenbury.

Monique Goffinet Miller, a Victoria-based spokeswoman for the Monarchist League of Canada, said the city is abuzz as many residents and tourists of all ages prepare to stake out a place on the lawn of the legislature building for a ceremony on Saturday to welcome the Royal Family.

“The lights of the B.C. legislature building are there because they were lit for the diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria and they’ve been burning ever since,” she said of the site’s significance. “It was meant to look like Her Majesty’s crown.”